We had scarcely exchanged words during the entire night, but now she accepted my proffered hand gladly, and with a smile, springing lightly from the deck to the insecure footing of the log.

“I do not intend that you shall leave me behind,” she said, glancing about with a shudder.  “This is such a horrid place.”

“The way before us looks scarcely better,” I answered, vainly endeavoring to locate Sam.  “Friend Shrunk evidently is not eager for callers.  Where is that fellow?”

“Somewhere over in that thicket, I think.  At least his voice sounded from there.  You discovered nothing in the boat?”

“Only a rag and some fishing tackle.  Come; we’ll have to plunge in somewhere.”

She followed closely as I pushed a passage through the obstructing underbrush, finally locating Sam at the edge of a small opening, where the light was sufficiently strong to enable us to distinguish marks of a little-used trail leading along the bottom of a shallow gully bisecting the sidehill.  The way was obstructed by roots and rotten tree trunks, and so densely shaded as to be in places almost imperceptible, but Sam managed to find its windings, while we held close enough behind to keep him safely in sight.  Once we came into view of the river, but the larger part of the way lay along a hollow, heavily overshadowed by trees, where we could see only a few feet in any direction.

At the crossing of a small stream we noticed the imprint of several feet in the soft mud of the shore.  One plainly enough was small and narrow, beyond all question that of a woman, but the others were all men’s, one being clad in moccasins.  Beyond this point the path trended downward, winding along the face of the hill and much more easily followed.  Sam, still ahead, started to clamber across the trunk of a fallen tree, but came to a sudden halt, staring downward at something concealed from our view on, the other side.

“Good Lord o’ mercy!” he exclaimed, excitedly.

“What’s dat?”

I was close beside him by this time and saw the thing also—­the body of a man lying on the ground.  The light was so dim only the bare outlines of the recumbent figure were visible, and, following the first shock of discovery, my earliest thought was to spare the girl.

“Wait where you are, Rene!” I exclaimed, waving her back.  “There is a man lying here beyond the log.  Come, Sam; we will see what he looks like.”

He was slow in following, hanging back as I approached closer to the motionless form, and I could hear the muttering of his lips.  Unquestionably the man was dead; of this I was assured before I even knelt beside him.  He lay prone on his face in a litter of dead leaves, and almost the first thing I noticed was the death wound back of his ear, where a large caliber bullet had pierced the brain.  His exposed hands proved him a negro, and it was with a feeling of unusual repugnance that I touched his body, turning